


A whisper in the breeze (it's quiet, but it's there)

by never_going_home



Series: the wind spares no one [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Merlin Dies (Merlin), Sad, Sad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:53:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22145989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/never_going_home/pseuds/never_going_home
Summary: A whisper in the breeze. It's quiet, but it's there.The wind spares no one.Merlin is gone,whispers the wind.
Relationships: Gwen/Lancelot (Merlin), Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Series: the wind spares no one [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1896415
Comments: 13
Kudos: 148





	A whisper in the breeze (it's quiet, but it's there)

It's a whisper in the breeze. It’s quiet, but it’s there. The wind makes sure of that.

The wind spares no one.

The wind delights in the pain of people, blowing hungrily when they weep, trying to catch their tears.

But it can’t.

So the wind grows furious, swirling red cloaks and druid robes. A scrap of cloth, a mother's smock, caught in the whirlwind of its anger.

 _Emrys is dead,_ the wind taunts the people of magic. It's quiet, but it’s there. The druids, silent in their own way, do not make a sound when the wind tells them. Some never speak again.

Morgana, on her carven throne, tries to laugh. Tries to enjoy the feeling of bitter triumph. Tries to order her followers to march for Camelot, where her birthright will finally be hers to claim. 

But all she can feel is numb, before emotions she thought would never tarry with her again rise up, like a wave. The wind slaps her in the face and demands she see the fault in Merlin. She only sees the fault in herself, and so the Hollow Queen becomes broken.

The wind spares no one.

Not even magic itself. Magic is a living being, spun out of the same thread as was the very fabric of creation itself. Magic mourns the loss of Emrys, so young, so full of hope. But Emrys is dead, and magic screams. It pleads for its final, final chance. But that chance was taken when he breathed his last.

 _Merlin is gone,_ whispers the wind in the ears of all who loved him. It's quiet, but it’s there. It will not leave, no matter how they try and shut it out.

When Gwaine hears, he sits and stares into his pint for a long while. Finally, he downs it, then another and another, until he falls into a drunken stupor.

Better that than knowing Merlin is dead. 

But where Gwaine's reflection should be in the alcohol, he sees only scruffy black hair and clever blue eyes. Sees only Merlin. When he wobbles outside and collapses the gutter, he doesn’t feel the meaningless happiness he drinks for. The euphoria is replaced with coldness, so dark and bitter in its depth. Like how a life was devoured by death, a bright spark snuffed out. Forever.

Percival doesn’t talk about it. He thinks if he doesn’t think about it, it will disappear. And it works, for a while, until someone says the name – his name – and the world crumbles once again. He disappears into the woods, and only when they find him, kneeling next to the lake and crying, wind whipping up the tranquil waters, only then they understand.

Elyan throws himself into training. Agents of Morgana (who are few and far in between now) killed Merlin, but they shall not harm others.

Leon stands tall when others fall. He’s outlived a king, and did not shed a tear for Uther's passing, but when the wind bears its bad news to him, he does not hesitate to weep. He will cry for this boy, skinny and lanky and clumsy, but not for his lord of yore. Somehow, he finds this right. Merlin did more for them than Uther ever would.

Gwen is like her brother in many ways. She becomes diligent in her work, although the wife of a deceased knight need not do such tasks, if at all. But she needs to keep her hands busy. Her smiles are strained now, weak and dull in the memory of what they once were, dimmed with the memory of her best friend. _Merlin is gone,_ hisses the wind as she washes sheets, snarling it over and over in time to the rhythmic scrubbing of the washboard. _Merlin and Lancelot,_ says the wind, following in the echo of her footsteps as she strides from one place to the next. _Merlin and Lancelot and Father and Mother,_ it chants at night, keeping her awake as she tosses and turns.

Gaius feels a burning in his chest at the news. His heart isn’t what it used to be. His ward's name beats over and over with the palpitations, gradually slowing, then stopping completely. The wind dances it’s dance of rage around his peaceful body. Not yet, it shrieks, not you, not now. The new healer is competent, but she lacks the ember Gaius held and Merlin ignited. The townspeople feel it too.

Hunith isn’t sure what to make of King Arthur riding alone towards her home. Perhaps he bears news of her son? Bear news he does, but not the kind she expected. Merlin and Gaius dead, he says, adding a gentle apology. Hunith stares at him as a stray tumbleweed blows by, pushed by the agitated wind. A mother's grief is stronger than even nature. The wind stills obediently when she whispers his name, never again to scold him nor love him, as a mother should. Arthur presses a red piece of cloth into her hands, and the tears come trickling out.

And Arthur. King Arthur. The ruling Pendragon. He checks his belt every day now, hoping it doesn’t fit. That Merlin might make his comments regarding his waistline. But Merlin is dead, and the man he loved gone beyond the vale. His fingers tremble when he fastens his armour or combs his hair. Like its someone else's job. And it is. 

Standing up on the parapet, the wind is his only companion. It caresses his cheek, tells him in whispers of what could’ve been, what should’ve. Arthur's heart, broken a million times by his foolish servant shatters completely. The wind spares no one.

Not even itself. It screams the voice it doesn't have hoarse, then a bit more, telling the world of its tormented soul. It is magic, it is Albion, it is Emrys, it is Merlin.

And, it’s quiet, but it’s there, the name whispered forever in the breeze.

The wind makes sure of that.


End file.
